Cenozoic Tectonics of Western North America Controlled by Evolving Width of Farallon Slab

Schellart, Wouter P.; Stegman, D. R.; Farrington, Rebecca; Freeman, Justin; Moresi, Louis

doi:10.1126/science.1190366

Cited by 88 publications

(113 citation statements)

References 28 publications

(10 reference statements)

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“…As can readily be observed the larger scale patterns correspond rather well, including the positive anomaly under central-southeast Australia. We add that the anomaly is also observed in other global mantle seismic tomography models, for example the recent P-wave model from Simmons et al (2012).…”

Section: Deep Mantle Structure Below Australiamentioning

confidence: 79%

Australian plate motion and topography linked to fossil New Guinea slab below Lake Eyre

Schellart

Spakman

2015

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

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Unravelling causes for absolute plate velocity change and continental dynamic topography change is challenging because of the interdependence of large-scale geodynamic driving processes. Here, we unravel a clear spatio-temporal relation between latest Cretaceous-Early Cenozoic subduction at the northern edge of the Australian plate, Early Cenozoic Australian plate motion changes and Cenozoic topography evolution of the Australian continent. We present evidence for a ∼4000 km wide subduction zone, which culminated in ophiolite obduction and arc-continent collision in the New Guinea-Pocklington Trough region during subduction termination, coinciding with cessation of spreading in the Coral Sea, a ∼5 cm/yr decrease in northward Australian plate velocity, and slab detachment. Renewed northward motion caused the Australian plate to override the sinking subduction remnant, which we detect with seismic tomography at 800-1200 km depth in the mantle under central-southeast Australia at a position predicted by our absolute plate reconstructions. With a numerical model of slab sinking and mantle flow we predict a long-wavelength subsidence (negative dynamic topography) migrating southward from ∼50 Ma to present, explaining Eocene-Oligocene subsidence of the Queensland Plateau, ∼330 m of late Eocene-early Oligocene subsidence in the Gulf of Carpentaria, Oligocene-Miocene subsidence of the Marion Plateau, and providing a first-order fit to the present-day, ∼200 m deep, topographic depression of the Lake Eyre Basin and Murray-Darling Basin. We propound that dynamic topography evolution provides an independent means to couple geological processes to a mantle reference frame. This is complementary to, and can be integrated with, other approaches such as hotspot and slab reference frames.

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Section: Deep Mantle Structure Below Australiamentioning

confidence: 79%

Australian plate motion and topography linked to fossil New Guinea slab below Lake Eyre

Schellart

Spakman

2015

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

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“…It is clearly related kinematically to retreat of the trench relative to the upper plate of the subduction zone, but this does not provide a dynamic explanation. Possibilities include the motion of the upper plate in a deep mantle reference frame (Uyeda 1982), tractions at the base of the upper plate induced by corner-flow circulation in the mantle wedge (Schellart et al 2010), the high GPE of back-arc crust (Platt 2007), or some combination of these.…”

Section: Driving Forces For Core Complex Formationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Metamorphic core complexes: windows into the mechanics and rheology of the crust

Platt

Behr

Cooper

2014

JGS

133

131

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“…Other research suggests that an increase in plate age corresponds to an increase in subducting plate velocity [ Carlson et al , 1983; Goes et al , 2008] and trench retreat velocity [ Molnar and Atwater , 1978], but initial work from Jarrard [1986] and more recent work from Heuret and Lallemand [2005] implies no correlation exists between plate age and trench velocity. Most recently, a global compilation of subduction zones has shown that the correlation between subducting plate age and both v SP⊥ and v T⊥ is relatively weak [ Schellart et al , 2010]. It thus appears that the aforementioned individual parameters cannot explain the diversity of subduction partitioning, plate velocities and trench velocities on Earth.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of lateral slab edge distance on plate velocity, trench velocity, and subduction partitioning

et al. 2011

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[1] Subduction of oceanic lithosphere occurs through both trenchward subducting plate motion and trench retreat. We investigate how subducting plate velocity, trench velocity and the partitioning of these two velocity components vary for individual subduction zone segments as a function of proximity to the closest lateral slab edge (D SE ). We present a global compilation for 207 trench segments from 17 active subduction zones on Earth and three-dimensional numerical models of progressive free subduction of a single oceanic plate that subducts into a stratified mantle. The results show that the subducting plate velocity is always high (≥5.1 cm/yr (models) and ≥4.2 cm/yr (nature)) and trench velocity is always low (≤2.5 cm/yr (models) and ≤1.7 cm/yr (nature)) in the center of wide subduction zones (D SE > 2200 km). Only in regions close to lateral slab edges (D SE < 1000 km), be it for narrow or wide subduction zones, can the trench velocity exceed 4 cm/yr (models) and 6 cm/yr (nature) and can the subducting plate velocity go below 4 cm/yr (models) and 2 cm/yr (nature). In general, plate velocities, trench velocities and subduction partitioning are much more variable near slab edges than in the center of wide subduction zones owing to other parameters that affect subduction kinematics. We conclude that subduction kinematics can vary considerably along individual subduction zones and that the upper bound values for trench velocity and lower bound values for subducting plate velocity and subduction partitioning at individual subduction zone segments depend critically on D SE .

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Cenozoic Tectonics of Western North America Controlled by Evolving Width of Farallon Slab

Cited by 88 publications

References 28 publications

Australian plate motion and topography linked to fossil New Guinea slab below Lake Eyre

Australian plate motion and topography linked to fossil New Guinea slab below Lake Eyre

Metamorphic core complexes: windows into the mechanics and rheology of the crust

Influence of lateral slab edge distance on plate velocity, trench velocity, and subduction partitioning

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